As Ireland heads to the polls shortly for a plebiscite on the constitution’s framing of women’s role in Irish society, I am reminded of parallels with another constitutional amendment on women and equality in the United States fifty years ago.
Then, in the mid 1970s, a group of conservative women pulled off an extraordinary feat when they blocked the ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment or ERA.
In 1972, the amendment had passed through Congress with overwhelming bipartisan support and was dispatched to the 50 states to complete the ratification process. While in Ireland, changes to the constitution require a referendum, in the US three-quarters of the 50 state legislatures must approve alongside Congress.
The ERA had begun life during the suffragette movement of the 1920s but it wasn’t until the early 1970s that it finally secured a hearing before Congress. Second wave feminists sought to copper-fasten gains achieved in gender equality by enshrining them in the constitution mirroring other rights-based movements such as the Civil Rights movement.
The text of the amendment seemed uncontroversial:
“Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex. The Congress shall have the power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.”
Initially, the ERA faced little opposition. Public support stood at 79% and state ratification seemed certain. Within a year, 30 of the 38 states needed had approved the text.
However, it was soon faced a maelstrom of powerful and passionate opposition.
The anti-ERA movement was led by Phylis Schlafly — an ambitious, intelligent, determined and innovative conservative Catholic. Schlafly used her mailing list, the Phyllis Schlafly Report, to galvanise followers in the tens of thousands all around the US.
Schlafly united disparate local grassroots groups into a coherent national campaign which proved extraordinarily effective. She organised training camps with workshops and speakers. Then her zealous army of mostly female supporters went to work in their home states lobbying their local legislators. One activist held Tupperware parties to fund her activities. Others baked bread to give to legislators while exhorting them to vote against the amendment.
In contrast, pro-ERA organisations were far-removed from the state trenches where the battles raged and the war ultimately won. The proposal was undermined by an ambiguity around the benefits the amendment would deliver. It’s vague wording meant the judiciary or Congress would define its ultimate impact.
This left ample room for speculation about what religious conservatives saw as potential negative consequences — gender neutral bathrooms or prisons, women being forced out to work or facing conscription (the US had only recently withdrew from Vietnam) or legalisation for same sex marriage.
The ERA had become another front in the then nascent culture wars set to mire the US over the following decades.
On International Women’s day this year, Ireland will vote to amend two articles of its 1937 constitution following a recommendation to this affect from the Citizens’ Assembly on Gender Equality.
Previous Citizens’ Assemblies have deliberated on issues considered of national importance such as the removal of the 8th amendment to the constitution which had forbidden abortion in almost all cases. The results of the referendum that followed reflected the assembly’s findings. This was seen as an endorsement of the process and suggested such deliberative democracy offered a pathway to respectful public discourse on difficult issues.
Amending Article 41 will provide for a wider concept of family while deleting Article 41.2 containing text on the role of women in the home and inserting a new article to recognise family care.
Similar to the anti-ERA campaign, in Ireland those arguing for a rejection of the changes point to the ambiguity of the proposed wording and possible unwanted and unexpected consequences.
Opponents suggest the benefits are solely ideological — removing arguably patriarchal, dated language — while the negative implications could be consequential.
They contend that it offers no tangible benefits to women but rather may remove the state’s obligation to mothers and undermine those who choose to remain within the home.
The dark shadow of American culture war rhetoric swirls around too, accusing the amendment’s supporters of seeking the ‘erasure’ of the word woman and its replacement with gender neutral language and a redefinition of the family.
These arguments recall the anti-ERA’s successful strategy which undermined ratification despite widespread public and Congressional support.
By 1982, the Equal Rights Amendment was considered dead in the water. Renewed interest in recent years led to it finally passing the 38 state threshold in January 2020 when Virginia voted in favour.
This side of the Atlantic, we will know whether the parallels between these US and Irish constitutional amendments continue on International Women’s Day this year.
Jacqueline Fitzgibbon 
Leave a comment